Pandora's box
by Shimizu-Akira
Summary: *Spoilers for "Rises"* The tide begins to turn against Bane, so a member of the League decides to take matters into his own hands...


Nero calmly strode through the yellowing corridor of the rotting asylum toward the control room. At the moment, Bane didn't know it, but he was now eating crow. As a lieutenant in the League of Shadows, Nero had warned Bane to completely eradicate both Batman and the police. No, the masked man told him. All he needed to do was to break the Bat, both body and mind, and leave him in the pit, which pretty much left him as good as dead. As for the police, Bane felt it was vital to leave the false impression with all Gothamites that he was merciful; the police, he argued, were just as powerless at this point as the Batman was.

Now, as per Nero's prediction, Batman wasn't just back in action, but he had freed the police and was leading them into battle against Bane's army in an effort to foil their plot to detonate the fusion device. Nero knew full well that even if the League prevailed over the police, Batman would find a way to save the city from the meltdown, just as he had prevented Ra's al Ghul from spreading the fear toxin across Gotham during the League's previous attack.

The League had tried multiple times to destroy this infernal city through various creative methods: economic failure, chemical warfare, and now social revolution. No, Nero thought. It was obvious from the events eight years ago that it only took one man to destroy this city from the inside out.

Inside the control room, Nero honed in on the single control panel. This particular corridor, and floor for that matter, housed only one inmate, and this inmate was the key to Nero's plan. He systematically turned a key (left in place by the now absent guard) and flipped a switch. From down the hall, he heard a fuzzy siren and a loud metallic _ka-chunk_. He watched the open doorway intently, but no one emerged. Finally, he heard a soft, drawling voice faintly ask, "Is it true? Is the Bat-man" (he placed heavy emphasis on the word "bat") "back in town?"

"Yes," Nero bellowed back. "Unfortunately."

"Oh, no," the voice chuckled back. "This is _very_ fortunate."

"Come on out, then," Nero asked, taking a tighter hold on his rifle's pistol grip in the process. "I'm sure you must be….pretty sick of that cell."

"Oh, no, it was pretty cozy," the voice responded as a figure slowly emerged from the far dark room, clad in a faded orange jump suit and shaking his long, messy hair. "I was just waiting for my masked cell mate to join me." As he stepped into the light, Nero took one glance at the man and nearly vomited. He had witnessed atrocities in war and seen various disfigurements, but this man's face was…sickening.

"So," the inmate asked as he skipped and duck walked up the corridor towards Nero, "what now?"

"Now, you're free to destroy Gotham," Nero declared robustly.

"Oh, see, we're not on the same wavelength here," the inmate giggled, pointing a finger at Nero. As he drew closer, Nero grew more disturbed by his appearance. Had he done this to himself?

"But you don't understand my question. What I mean is, what now for you?"

Nero raised an eyebrow. "I let you go. That's it."

"Oh, now see, I think I owe you a little something now."

"No, you don't owe me anything. Just do what you'd tried to do before you were locked up." Nero now had his rifle aimed clearly at the scarred inmate, who was now just a few feet away.

"No, you don't understand. I gotta give something back," the inmate explained, gesturing with a hand pointing from himself back to Nero. Then, out of nowhere, he grabbed a keyboard from the desk next to him and threw it at Nero's face. Nero instinctively threw up his arms in defense, giving the inmate the chance to quickly snatch the rifle from his hands. Instead of shooting Nero, however, the inmate bashed the butt of the rifle through a nearby computer monitor. Ignoring the sparks and spitting wires, he calmly grabbed a glass shard and in no time at all, had Nero pressed tight against the wall. Holding the edge of the shard against the opening of Nero's mouth, the inmate smiled, raising the carved lines of flesh stretching from his own mouth over his cheeks. "How about…I tell you a story about how I received these scars?"

At this moment, Nero finally understood why Bane released all but this one prisoner.


End file.
